by Joss Wood
“How do you know him?” Seth demanded, his voice harsh.
“He’s an old friend, my best friend. He rents the guest house from me.” Leah explained.
“He the type who would put a mannequin in the pool?”
“No!” Leah replied, now thoroughly wet and miserable.
She placed her hands on her hips and glared at Seth who, finally and far too slowly, lowered his weapon, holding it against his thigh.
“What the hell is going on, Leah? Who’s the dickhead?” Milo demanded, trying to sound tough but failing.
“I’m the dickhead still holding the gun,” Seth replied in a menacing voice.
Leah closed her eyes and shook her head. She’d had enough. She was wet and cold and scared and irritated and turned on. An altogether too uncomfortable state of affairs. “Milo, this is Seth, I’ll explain who and what he is doing here in the morning.”
Milo frowned. “Okay. And are you also going to explain why there’s a dead guy next to the pool?”
Leah narrowed her eyes at him. Milo was prone to drama and, by tomorrow, he’d have a wonderful—and far from truthful—account of tonight to share with his friends.
“It’s a mannequin, Mi, as you well know. I’m going to bed.”
Ignoring Seth, who fell into step beside her, she walked back into the house and up the stairs to her bedroom. At the door to her room, Seth placed a hand on her shoulder and she slowly turned around. She lifted her eyes to meet his. His expression was part annoyance, part amusement, all frustration.
“Did you want to say something, Halcott?” she asked when he just looked at her, his eyes starting at her feet and leisurely making her way upwards.
Seth placed his hand on the doorframe above her head and the muscles in his chest and abdomen rippled with movement. God, the man was beautifully ripped.
“A couple of things...” His eyes hardened and darkened as he turned into Officer Commanding on her. “You should have stayed in the house, where you were relatively safe. And dry.”
“I thought the mannequin was you.” Leah protested.
“Still, you should’ve stayed inside.” Seth lifted her chin with his finger and his fantastic eyes drilled into her again. “And if you ever touch my arm again when I am pointing a gun at someone I’ll lose my shit, which is not something you want to see.”
It took all her willpower to keep her eyes steady on his.
“Are we clear?” Seth asked, his voice soft but steady, determined.
Leah tipped her head and nodded. “Yeah. Forgive me for being worried that you were face down in my pool,” she muttered.
“I’m pretty hard to kill, Leah. And I suggest you get out of that wet t-shirt before you catch a cold...”
Leah looked down and saw the white shirt was plastered against her chest, showing off her boobs and her cold and puckered nipples. Shit, she thought, blushing. She steeled herself to meet Seth’s eyes but when she finally did the door to his room was closing. Thank God.
Chapter Three
“Prettiest run I think I’ve ever done.”
Leah turned her head to look at Seth and smiled. They were on the promenade, heading back to her house via the village of St. James and he was looking at the iconic and brightly colored bathing boxes on the mostly empty beach. Waves broke over the wall of the tidal pool and a fishing boat was heading out to sea.
They’d both needed this. Despite a night short on sleep—the little she’d managed curled up in the chair in the corner of her room—she’d invited Seth to run with her and he’d quickly agreed. Like her, he seemed to need to stretch his muscles, to distance himself from the craziness of the night before.
Someone had tossed a mannequin in her swimming pool. Why? It was a sick joke, a malicious prank. Oh Lord, she hoped that was all it was.
They slowed down and Seth hit a button on his watch as he stopped. He placed two fingers on the pulse point on his neck and looked out to sea. “There’s a whale at twoo’clock,” he said, his eyes flicking between his watch and the horizon. “Quite far out. I saw a splash.”
Hauling in air, Leah placed her hands on her hips and stared out to sea and within twenty seconds she saw the whale’s plume and a flash of the tail thumping the surface of the ocean. God, she loved Cape Town, loved the weather, and her scenic surroundings. The sea and the sun, the wonderful combination of Africa and Europe, of new world and old.
“It’s a long way from New York.” Seth quietly stated, dropping his hand.
“I love New York but here, at the end of the day, I can take a glass of wine onto the veranda and watch the sea. This is, well, home. It has been since the first day I arrived here, fifteen years ago.” Now that was too much information, chatty-Cathy. She wondered why she had little control over her mouth around him. He had a way of pulling her words to the surface, of looking at her, his amazing eyes encouraging her to talk.
Dammit. She would be far happier if she could just dismiss him as being another good-looking guy who’d dropped into her life and who would disappear again in a week or so. She didn’t want to be intrigued by him, turned on by him.
But she was.
He was a temporary Band-Aid for her heart, a distraction, someone and something thing else to focus on besides Heath and her non-marriage. He, it, Seth, didn’t mean anything.
“Did you run with Heath?” Seth demanded, grabbing the railing with his hands and stretching his calf muscles.
And really, in that position, how was she not supposed to look at his butt?
Seth turned his head and looked her, his expression expectant. What had he asked? Oh, right...Heath.
“Heath, run?” She scoffed. “Heath didn’t exercise much. Or at all.”
Seth pulled his left arm across his chest to hold it with his right arm. The movement caused his shirt to pull tight across his stomach and she could see the ridges of that impressive abdominal pack. Leah felt the moisture disappear from her mouth and sighed. Seth had the ability to rocket her from nun to give-me-some in ten seconds flat.
Leah held her right ankle against her butt cheek, stretching out her quadriceps. Seth swallowed and looked out to sea. Mm, so maybe she wasn’t the only one who liked what they saw. It was just lust, a normal run of the mill attraction.
He was rebound guy.
“Jed said that he wanted a hefty chunk of change from you.”
Leah wrinkled her nose, annoyance replacing lust. “We had a pre-nup and since our marriage only lasted a few hours, my lawyer walked the floor with his lawyer. He received nothing, will receive nothing...in fact, I don’t want a divorce, I want an annulment.”
“Good for you.” Seth looked down at his hand. “Damn, it should’ve been his face.”
Say what? Leah narrowed her eyes. “Explain that cryptic statement, Halcott.”
Seth’s innocent expression needed a great deal of work.
“What did you do to Heath? You did something, didn’t you?” Leah persisted.
Seth took another long moment before answering her. “Your brother and I made it clear to Green how unamusing we found his behavior.”
Leah lifted her fist to her lips and looked at him with horrified eyes. “You beat him up?”
“We made it clear that we didn’t appreciate his behavior.”
Leah groaned. “Oh, God, you did! You worked him over.”
Seth didn’t confirm or deny. Or apologize. Not that she expected him to do either.
“He could’ve laid assault charges against you!”
“He’s not that brave,” Seth said, his words confirming that he, and her brother, had done something to Heath.
And with their special ops training and skills, “something” could range from a punch to water-torture. She wanted to feel bad for Heath but she just couldn’t get there. She wasn’t a saint, for goodness sake.
“We made our point.” Seth raised his hand and waved the subject away.
Leah rested her forearms on the railing. “That explains so mu
ch. I did some damage to the room and when my lawyer approached the hotel so I could pay for the damages; he was told that Heath settled the bill.”
Seth smiled. “Mmm, you did a damn good job destroying that room. The bill maxed out both his savings and credit cards.”
“You made him settle the bill?”
She saw the amusement in his eyes. “We didn’t make him do anything. We just made a strong suggestion.”
Leah snorted. “Strong suggestion my ass.”
“It’s a very pretty ass,” Seth agreed, his gazemoving from her eyes, to her butt and back up again. “You’re pretty, all over.”
Seth’s hand lifted and his fingers encircled her throat, his thumb tracing the tight cords in her neck. “When I kissed you two weeks ago I wanted to distract you, to take your mind off the situation.”
“It worked,” Leah admitted, her eyes locked on his, fascinated by the way his eyes moved from moss to hunter green and back again.
“This time it has nothing to do with distraction, with making you feel better. This is about what I want,” Seth murmured, moving to close the gap between them.
He stopped a fraction from her and she couldn’t help stepping into his space, pushing her breasts into his hard chest, sliding her smooth calf against his bigger, rougher leg. Leah’s breath hitched. His fingers moved up and down her neck and created a path of white light straight to her groin. She was shocked at how much she wanted him to move his hand up to her breast, to find her sensitive nipples through the thin layers of cotton. She should step away, but she was so enjoying the heat of his body, his hardness of his broad chest, the power in the arms that held her.
She should ease herself back into dating and sex. Going from Heath and his betrayal to Seth, in the space of two and a half weeks with no one in between, was like skipping basic parachute training to throwing herself from short buildings with a tiny ’chute.
Leah found herself staring into a hard shoulder as his hands gripped her hips. At his silent command, she lifted her face and stared into his amazing eyes. Heat and desire churned within them and his fingers pressed into the flesh on her hips. He wanted her...and for a brief instant she felt powerful and invincible.
She wasn’t sad or humiliated or feeling less than...Seth wanted her and it felt good.
Seth’s mouth settled on hers, as powerful as a tsunami and as gentle as a butterfly’s kiss. His lips were cool but insistent, his tongue flickering between hers, persistent but undemanding. Here I am, taste me, know me. It was primal, instinctive, searching.
She lost time in his arms. She could have been there for hours or seconds. Time and its silly rules held no meaning. There was just this man and his clever lips and his hard, strong, safe haven of a body.
When Seth finally pulled away from her mouth, she rested the side of her face on his shoulder and listened to his heartbeat. There was something curiously intimate listening to someone’s life force pump in their chest.
It was even more intimate than the rigidity of his erection pressing into her stomach.
“I want you,” he said.
He wanted her. It was a simple, powerful statement. Leah pulled back and forced herself to look up at him, trying to think. They had crackling chemistry and she wanted, desperately, to get naked with him but she was a little scared, a lot hesitant. Sleeping with Seth wasn’t a good idea and not only because, up until a few weeks ago, she’d been in a committed, long-term relationship that had ended in dreadful circumstances. Apart from those very good reasons not to do this, Seth wasn’t just another arbitrary man, he wasn’t someone she could have some fun with and forget about. He was her brother’s best friend. They would be in each other’s lives for a long time to come. Sleeping together now would cause some awkwardness in the future; she wasn’t sure if she could attend future family gatherings—Seth was Jed’s family as much as she was—and know that she’d had hot, fantastic sex with the man across the table.
Because it would be hot and it would be frickin’ fantastic and she couldn’t imagine not wanting a repeat performance.
His future wife/girlfriend/partner might object.
Leah opened her mouth to speak, having no idea what she intended to say, when Seth dropped his hands from her body and moved back, creating some distance between them. Distance they needed but she didn’t want. Judging by the impressive erection tenting his athletic shorts, neither did he.
“I shouldn’t say that, neither should I be kissing you. There are reasons why that isn’t a good idea.”
“Such as?”
“You are recovering from a crappy couple of weeks and that’s reason enough for us not to be doing this. But, apart from that, I’ve got a lot to deal with...I have a Pytheon case to solve and that’s hard enough without some imposter taking you to lunch and someone tossing mannequins in your pool.” Seth pushed his fingers through his hair and released a long stream of air.
“Someone is using you to get to me and I need to stay sharp. I need to focus on that and finding...” He hesitated, pulled a face, and looked towards the bright bathing boxes. “I just need to concentrate and you are a distraction.”
Leah sighed. Like Jed and her dad, who was a retired general in the US Army, Seth had too many secrets and was far too proficient at keeping them. All three were non-communicative and emotionally unavailable, at least Jed had been until he’d met McKenna. Leah was used to secrets. She’d lived with them all her life.
Besides, she and Seth were just strangers experiencing a chemical reaction and she had no right to explanations.
He was right, they shouldn’t do this, should not do this. That chemical reaction could, very easily, blow up in their faces. Frankly, she’d had enough emotional explosions lately to last a lifetime.
Besides, in a normal world—and her world right now was anything but normal—a man like Seth, someone who fascinated her as much as he did had the power to hurt her, the ability to turn her well-ordered, stable life upside down. When she was fully over her breakup, she’d be glad she didn’t complicate matters with Seth. She knew this.
After all, the best cheese was always found in mousetraps.
Leah gave herself a mental slap and pulled a bright, fake smile onto her face. “Let’s head for home. I’m starving. Are you starving?” She started to walk towards home, her heart heavy and her mouth dry with disappointment.
She turned her head to look back at him and he took a while to move his eyes from her butt to herface.
“You have no damned idea how much,” he muttered as he started to follow her home.
Dammit. Instinctively, she knew that he wasn’t thinking of food.
Seth was exceptionally good at compartmentalizing his life, his work, his thoughts and emotions but as they walked back to the house, those carefully constructed boxes he’d created were falling apart. He needed to think of Leah as work, a part of a puzzle he had to solve but she was also need, and heat, and want. She was Jed’s sister and therefore someone he felt the need to protect yet she also heated his blood and fried his common sense.
He wanted her but he didn’t want to want her...honestly, he was deeply uncomfortable with how she made him feel. He liked women, he did. He liked the way they moved, laughed, thought. They were sensitive and tangled, sweet smelling and softer but he liked them in small doses.
He was, essentially, a loner and too much personal time spent with one person made him scratchy. Dinner and sex was normally as much “together” time as he could handle yet he found Leah easy to be around and ridiculously difficult to resist.
She was a unique combination of brains and heart and sexiness. And it was her sexy that was killing him—but she was vulnerable and sad and looking for an escape. God knew he wasn’t an angel but he did try to not be a complete bastard either.
He needed to get his head back in the game. Across town there was a family whose world had been flipped upside down and he had to try and trace who was playing this cat-and-mouse-and-mannequin game with
him and why.
The why was the question that buzzed around his head. Could it be his father? Not likely but, if it was, why had he faked his death? What was his aim, his payoff, his motive?
When he’d heard about Ben’s death, he’d easily accepted the news. There had been no reason to doubt the Spring PD. The burnt body in the car was the same age, build, and ethnicity as his father and the car was registered to him. Personal effects had been found next to his body. Seth stopped, stared at the road, and rubbed the back of his neck. Death was easy to fake. He’d done it once or ten times himself. Yeah, he was a professional but anyone with a modicum of intelligence could, especially in an area with an underfunded, under resourced, and inexperienced police department, like Spring, get away with it.
“What’s wrong?”
Seth shook his head, his brain spinning.
Was his father out there? The law of probability told him there was a chance that he was. So that begged the question...if so, why? What the hell did he want?
Me. He wanted what he always wanted, the one thing he never had. He wanted me. His son, his heir, the fruit of his loins.
Screw that. Not going to happen.
Leah looked at him, her blue eyes troubled. “Want to tell me what conclusion you came to?”
“What makes you think—”
“Seth, I’m not a ditsy girl without a brain in her head.” Leah interrupted him. “You came to a conclusion back there and I want to know what it is. I have a right to know what you’re thinking, especially since I’m neck-deep in whatever craziness I’ve been dropped into.”
Leah stopped, turned to face him, and drilled a sharp tipped finger into his chest. Seth covered her small hand with his and sighed when heat radiated into his hands and up his arm. Shit. This was so damned inconvenient.
Leah just lifted both her eyebrows and waited, her eyes demanding a truthful answer.
Seth sighed and capitulated. “I think that there is a possibility, a very small possibility, that your lunch companion might, actually, be my father. And he’s playing games with us.”
Leah tipped her head to one side. “You said that he died in a car crash.”